


Nearly Strangers

by sallyamongpoison



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Cullen is very nervous, First Meeting, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mention of Therapy, Online Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7961275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallyamongpoison/pseuds/sallyamongpoison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which two nearly perfect strangers meet for the very first time after months of knowing each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nearly Strangers

Cold. Grey. Wet. Rain and snow. Sleet. It wasn’t the day to be going out. Today was the kind of day to spend at home with a mug of tea on the couch with a warm blanket wrapped around his shoulders. That had been the thought running through his head while he showered, dressed, and headed out the door. The longer the day went on and the closer it got to when he’d needed to leave the house the more he _really_ didn’t want to go. Maybe he was psyching himself out, as was his way, but that was just how he was. Being spontaneous wasn’t Cullen’s way, and while this had been planned for over a week there was still that same sort of anxious feeling he got when something was sprung on him last minute.

So he’d tried. He’d tried to tame his curls into something manageable, tried to dress in something that didn’t look too much like he was being too casual or trying too hard. That said, he didn’t really know what you wore to something like this. It wasn’t a date, not so much, and it wasn’t meeting a friend. Okay, sort of. It was meeting a friend that he’d never actually met before. It was meeting a friend, meeting someone he’d talked to for months, but had never seen face to face.

_Maybe we should meet up. No pressure._

That was the message he’d gotten a week ago and it had taken him a day and a half to answer. Cullen had mulled the idea over until it made his head hurt and his stomach ache, but he’d agreed. He’d agreed because this person was a friend. He’d agreed because there were moments when they talked, late at night, that he wondered if maybe he could fall for him. There were little signs, little things and big things that they’d talked about under the cover of anonymity, that struck him down to the middle of his heart and soul and Cullen had never felt that before.

The internet was a wonderful and terrifying place that way.

_I’m the blond in the red shirt and jeans. I’ll have a copy of Tale of the Champion with me just in case too._

He went to the coffee shop in the rain, ordered something milky and sweet to tide him over while he waited not terribly patiently, and wondered why felt compelled to be so ridiculously early. On the drive over, which put him there almost half an hour before his friend was set to arrive, he wondered if maybe that would give him cold feet. Would he sit there and work himself into such a state that he hid in the bathroom and waited until the other man feasibly gave up and left? The urge to do so was strong. Or to just leave and say something came up. He could fake an emergency, couldn’t he?

Cullen’s knee bobbed under the table, shook the chair he sat in and made the coffee concoction in his mug slosh back and forth while he contemplated his options. There were so many. How was this even going to work? Was his friend, because he was a friend but also a complete stranger, going to sit down and they’d chat like they had since they’d met on that message board about ancient history and warfare? Would it be awkward? It would probably be awkward. He was always awkward. Why couldn’t he be _not_ awkward? Why couldn’t he smile and just be at ease? Why couldn’t he just meet people and not feel the urge to scout the place and look for all the possible exits just in case?

_I was there. In Kirkwall. When the rebellions started. I saw fire explode out of the windows of the Chantry because the people felt oppressed._

He’d never said those words to someone that wasn’t paid for by the Order to help him in his honorable retirement after all that. He’d never really spoken about it to any of his family or friends, but somehow behind a screen it was so easy to lay out his problems to just another random screenname on his computer. It flowed out of him like water, or blood, and left him raw and hurting but better in a way that he’d never felt in the mandated therapy. Not that it helped the nightmares or the insomnia, hence why they only ever talked late at night, but it did help something. That was what he wanted. He wanted to meet someone that he could say those words to and maybe get the same sort of gentle reassurance that he wasn’t broken or wrong like he’d gotten in all those saved conversations that were hidden in files and folders on his computer.

It was why he didn’t bolt.

A sigh fell from his lips as Cullen ran a hand through his hair and stared down at his coffee. He didn’t even know the man’s name, not really, and he wondered how he might address him? Was he a John? A Will? A…Maker only knew, maybe he was a name that Cullen couldn’t even imagine. He was always LostInTheStacks to Cullen, and greeting him as such would probably be weird. Why hadn’t he asked his name? Why hadn’t he made the effort? Why hadn’t LostInTheStacks asked him for his name? Was he going to walk in and call him LionsPride? That was the only thing he’d ever been to him, after all, and he only knew that the person meeting him was a man because, well…

_I’ve always been the most disappointing son._

_Just look for the dashing man in purple with the mustache You can’t miss me._

The thought made his stomach sour just a little, and Cullen pushed the coffee away. They didn’t know each other. They didn’t know what the other looked like. They didn’t know anything beyond the hours and weeks of shared secrets and hopes and history that they’d shared in dark rooms with only the glow of the screen to keep them company. Or maybe that was just Cullen. How could he meet this man, the one who’d told him the horror stories of a family that didn’t appreciate him and questioned both his choices and his very nature, without even knowing his name?

How could he not fall immediately for the person who’d shown him such kindness?

But would the person who showed up be that same kind soul? Was it just an act? Was it some prank played on him by someone who got their kicks meeting people from the internet and laughing in their face? Was Cullen just a bit of fun that this man would use as a good story at a party later? Or worse, was he some sad sack that he showed their conversations to his friends and joked about how sad and pathetic he was?

No. No, he couldn’t do this. He’d say that a family emergency or something came up. The Maker only knew that he’d talked about his siblings and their kids enough to make it believable. He should go. He should go and maybe in another few months, if they ever talked again, they could try this meeting thing. He needed to know this man first, right? He needed to know more. He needed something beyond the stories and the heartfelt conversations and the little jumpy feeling he got in his stomach when his messenger lit up saying LostInTheStacks had come online.

Cullen got to his feet then and turned, coffee and book in hand, with every intention of going back to his car and going home. That was where he should be. He was going to go. He was absolutely going to. Until…

Hair that fell in long, loose waves to the shoulder caught his attention. Bronze skin, what was visible from the elbow down anyway, covered in tattoos. Eyes that were as grey as they sky outside, eyes that Cullen could see the color of even from half the coffee shop away, lined in dark kohl. A smile that wasn’t covered at all by what would have been a ridiculous looking mustache on anyone else. Full lips. It all came to him in fits and bursts as he watched the man scan the shop, and then their eyes met.

Him. It was him. Cullen knew him even before he opened his mouth. He knew him before they exchanged a word, anything that would prove that the man standing there and watching him was the man he’d shared more intimate and personal details with than he had anyone else. It was him. It was him, and Cullen’s heart started beating so fast that he wondered if he might pass out from how hard his blood was pumping.

A step. Two. Three. Four, and they were standing in each other’s space. Cullen couldn’t talk. He couldn’t talk because that damned awkwardness hit him like a punch in the chest. He couldn’t talk because in that first sixty seconds he saw the man that knew him so well and not at all. He couldn’t talk because he knew that man in the same way. He should talk. He should say something profound, should say something witty and charming, but all he could do was look into those grey eyes and be lost in them like he’d hoped against hope that he would have.

“You never told me you were so handsome,” were the words Cullen heard, and that voice was dark and luxurious in a way he’d never known before. It rubbed him in all the right ways, and for a second it was like he felt them down in his soul. But he still couldn’t speak. He couldn’t because he worried that if he opened his mouth he might say something stupid immediately and ruin all of it.

A beat passed, one that could have stretched into a more awkward silence, but instead of that there was a hand on his arm and that handsome face was fully in his line of sight. There was concern in those eyes, and Cullen took a breath. He breathed, and when he did he could smell orange and spices and something that was somehow completely familiar and mysteriously alluring all at once.

“I…” Cullen began, then leaned in and kissed the man’s cheek before he could stop himself. He _never_ did that. It was always a handshake, but his hands were full and there was a hand on his arm to keep him steady. It grounded him. It grounded him and he just…needed to kiss that man. Somehow.

“I’m Cullen.”

“Dorian.”

Smiles. Shared smiles, and Cullen nodded to the table he’d just gotten up from. “Sit with me?” he asked.

“Of course.”  

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr! @sallyamongpoison


End file.
